I Love This Life (a review)
I've listened to country music as long as I can remember. It's my mom's fault– she'd play her favorite country CDs at home every weekend, and country radio played on every drive we took. But it was her father, my Papou, who started the trend; my mom says that she grew up listening to country because of him. He passed away when she was 18.
In short, I don't judge her for her music choice. And as I continue this review I ask you not to judge me either.
But country music has changed since the bluegrass-tinged classics of the 50s and 60s, since Alan Jackson and the Dixie Chicks and Joe Diffie and Shania Twain of the 90s. In the last decade, country music has become widely hated for its over-processed sound and repetitive, cliche lyrics. Of course, this is a generalization, but country music hasn't become so polarizing for nothing. Country music... you either like it... or you don't.
I love my boots broke in, I love my camo hat
Don't mind a little paint on my jeans, yeah, I roll like that
I love driving my truck across the railroad tracks
If you hit it too quick, it'll hit you right back
I Love This Life by LOCASH is a great example of what modern country sounds like. The lyrics give you a good idea of where the song is going (there's a reason beer, trucks, and girls are a country stereotype). For a while, the bass is all you can hear. The instrumentation feels one step away from being a club or techno beat. Maybe they added the guitar in post.
I love a fresh cut field with a first frost on
How it shines like gold when the sun turned on
I love the sound of them wheels with my baby singing along
When "Boys Of Summer" comes on
I grew up in a small town on the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. We were minutes away from Lowell, a medium-sized city, and an hour away from Boston, but Tyngsborough always felt much more rural than urban. When I remember living there, I think of passing the Times farm on the bus ride to school. I remember running around a yard surrounded by woods, a few cubic yards of mulch dumped in the driveway. I think of driving by miles of forest and seeing pickup trucks and TRUMP 2020 bumper stickers and the Merrimack river flowing through the middle of town.
I don't love the direction country music has gone in recent years. But I was blessed (or cursed?) with a small-town upbringing. Do you know how much I loved knowing everyone in my graduating class? How much I loved being surrounded by trees and not concrete? How much I loved falling asleep to the sound of crickets, frogs, coyotes, and owls?
Blame my roots, blame nature, or blame my mom, but I can't help but feel moved (reluctantly) when I hear the chorus:
I love my small town world
I love a country girl
I love a Friday night
Man, I love this life.
I Love This Life earns a GEORGE SCORE of 9/10